“Every revolutionary ends up either by becoming an oppressor or a heretic.”

“The revolutionary government was required to become the government of the war.”

“Human rebellion ends in metaphysical revolution. It progresses from appearances to acts, from the dandy to the revolutionary.”

“Inasmuch as every judge some day ends up as a penitent, one had to travel the road in the opposite direction and practice the profession of penitent to be able to end up as a judge.”

“Accepting the absurdity of everything around us is one step, a necessary experience: it should not become a dead end. It arouses a revolt that can become fruitful”

“Anyway it was an idea of mother's and she often used to repeat it, that you ended up getting used to everything.”

“Freedom is not a reward or a decoration that you toast in champagne. On the contrary, it's hard graft and a long-distance run, all alone, very exhausting. Alone in a dreary room, alone in the dock before the judges, and alone to make up your mind, before yourself and before the judgement of others. At the end of every freedom there is a sentence, which is why freedom is too heavy to bear.”